Saturday, October 22, 2005

Successful species

Here's something a little more philosophical than the things I usually write on this blog. I imagine sometimes taking a little vacation and sitting down with all the good reviews and nice comments people have made about my books (and none of the not nice ones!). To lie back in that warm bath of love. Only, it's not love-- that was a slip– not love, but a substitute. I don't think other animals do so many things to get back to the sensation of unconditional love as we do: we do drink, drugs, sex, reading our good reviews.

The cat, writes Borges, lives now: "...man lives in time, in successiveness, while the magical animal lives in the present, in the eternity of the instant."

It is both our lust for the future and our powerful nostalgia for the past that so cripple us. If you judge the success of a species by the happiness of the individual, then, I think cats and English sparrows probably beat us hands down.